Victory

We rested in the cave with the hive creature— or mother, apparently (we figured out it was a mother after a few oval shaped items were brought to the water surface and pulled back under by tentacles).

Constant ranged attacks finally defeated the hive mother— Elizair blasted it with spells, and put some sort of magic on my weapon as well. Janet was everywhere, pulling on tentacles and dumping oil on the creature, which Elizair lit on fire. I only had to rescue him one time when the creature played dead and he got too close. It seemed unable to heal itself when out of the water, so Janet and I hauled on the tentacles and stabbed at all the exposed areas. When we were absolutely positive it was dead, we dragged it the rest of the way onto the beach of the little lake and slit it open. We found Munthrek’s body and his equipment and buried him in that cave, which I plan to call “Muthrek’s Mine” if anyone asks. We made sure no eggs survived either.

Our only remaining problem was getting out of the mine— but some dwarves and other people from Turnel had come and cleared the entrance, just finishing as we staggered wearily to the surface. We were greeted by a very strange-looking gnome who calls himself Fash. He doesn’t look like any other gnome I’ve ever seen, though he was raised by dwarves, which I don’t imagine helped any. Janet seems to like him (fresh meat?) and Elizair seems to think he can join us. I’m not sure I trust him, but if Elizair thinks he’s okay, I’ll go along with that for now.

It turns out we actually collected quite a lot of nice things on this latest excursion. I traded a magical hand axe for a light mace of similar quality for Janet. Elizair gave me a ring that will prevent me from suffering from that awful paralysis again. Janet, Elizair and I also each got about 5000 gold for the items we found, including a lot of those ant-scorpion tails. The shopkeeper we sold those to explained that they are called “’karg” and are normally found in the desert. When we told him how they seemed to get harder to kill as we fought them, he explained that the drones closest to the hive mother are stronger. We found (and sold!) a runestone that was in the mine too— perhaps that is how the hive got in the mine to begin with. Elizair and I must hurry back to the inn— I can hear Janet from here trying to find a “companion” for the homely Fash….